Scottish Doctor, author, speaker, sceptic

Statin Nation – The Documentary

Film Synopsis:

We are told that cholesterol is a major cause of heart disease. At least 40 million people are currently taking cholesterol-lowering medications, known as statins, and millions more people are avoiding foods that contain saturated fat and cholesterol.

The basic idea is that dietary saturated fat raises cholesterol levels, and these two substances somehow clog-up our arteries, causing a heart attack. This idea is often referred to as the diet-heart hypothesis.

However, a numbers of doctors and researchers have been challenging this hypothesis for decades, and the latest heart disease statistics reveal some alarming facts. Such as:

● People with high cholesterol tend to live longer
● People with heart disease tend to have low levels of cholesterol
● Cholesterol-lowering of a population does not reduce the rate of heart disease

In addition, despite their widespread use, and description as “wonder drugs” statin medications do not extend life for the majority of people who take them.

Cholesterol-lowering has become a huge global industry, generating at least $29 billion each year. Have the facts about heart disease, cholesterol and cholesterol medications been distorted by pharmaceutical companies and food manufacturers keen to increase their profits?

If the focus on cholesterol has been a mistake, then the greatest cost is associated with the lost opportunity to tackle heart disease.

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17 thoughts on “Statin Nation – The Documentary”

Good post. I learn something totally new and challenging on sites I stumbleupon on a daily basis.
It will always be interesting to read through content from other writers and practice something from their sites.

It isn’t only the pharmaceutical companies that are making money out of statins but insurance companies are as well; although their logic eludes me.
As someone with Type 2 Diabetes I am prescribed statins as standard. Because I am on statins then I am considered a higher risk than someone not taking statins hence I have to pay more for travel insurance; however if statins do the job they are supposed to do and raised cholesterol is a risk factor in heart disease/stroke as presumed then surely my risk should be reduced not increased as I am on preventative medication (not treatment).
If NICE get their way then everyone over the age of 50 will also pay more for their insurance premia as they will also be on statins and hence be considered to have a higher risk of heart disease/stroke, despite the fact that this year those same people are considered to be normal risk.
Have SIGN (Scottish Inter-collegiate Guidance Network) made any equivalent recommendation for statins for 50+?

As someone who takes medication for high blood pressure exactly the same ‘logic’ applies. When it comes to a Qrisk assessment you are apparently more likely in % terms to die of heart disease/stroke than if you don’t take the pills! Drs have to offer statins if you have a Qrisk over 10%, lowered from 20%. I refused them and at 74 my Qrisk is 18%: each birthday it rises !!

(i) “Risk factor” doesn’t mean “cause”. If they had proof that it’s a cause they’d say so. It simply means that they claim it is a positive correlate – much as in the old days having yellow fingers was a positive correlate with having lung cancer.

(ii) But the Good Doctor devotes much of his book (The Great Cholesterol Con) to showing that it isn’t even a positive correlate. The claim that it is a positive correlate is certainly bogus and very possibly dishonest.

Is there any “good”reason that most articles on the internet lack a date? If it was not for the fact that all the reader’s comments were dated, no one would know when this artickle was written. I find that quite irritating.

I have done in vestigations on the effects statins on human physiology as a social scientist when they were patented in the mid 80’s.

Post facto research by a Danish medical scientist on thousands of patients who had taken statins prior to death their showed their deleterious effects on human physiology.

I have incidentally knowledge of the interpretation and use of statistics and the effect of diet, drugs, environment etc. on human physiology, phyical and mental health etc.

The said scientist was duly awarded a Doctor of `Science for his ground breaking research by a well known University with which I am familiar. I tried to contact the same University but the said scientist has been deleted from their Honorary Degrees List. I leave it to you to draw your own conclusion.
My hypothesis is that much university Medical research is beholden to the finances of big drug companies etc.

I was sent to see a Consultant here in North Wale because my cholesterol was 8.2( I have Mediterranean grandma so this may effect it). Having read Dr Kendrick and also Prof Uffe Ravstau? I asked her if she knew about the trial in Paris university done over several years on 3-4,000 women aged 55-74 which is the category I fall into. They discovered to their amazement that the women with highest cholesterol survived acute heart attacks but those with lower levels of cholesterol didn’t survive. She agreed it was interesting and that the science behind it was good . But when I pointed out I was a woman in that age group so would it be wise to lower my cholesterol with drugs, she looked as if she’d swallowed a wasp and told her assistant not to give me another appointment because I was impossible and then flounced out of the room! I wonder why?

Dear Dr. Kendrick,
My sister-in-law was asking me about statins b/c she had just received a prescription for them. I was looking at statinnation.com for information to send her and saw that they were offering a free viewing of $tatin Nation. So I sent her and several others a link to watch the documentary. I received this astounding reply from a friend.

On Jul 31, 2018, at 17:21, Pam Forrester wrote:

“I just watched the whole thing. I totally believe every bit of it too. Years ago my doctor told me my cholesterol was high but he never wanted me to take anything. When he retired, I went to a new guy and the first thing he did was put me on statins. Fortunately I had a nurse friend who told me they were bad so I stopped after just a few weeks. When I happened to talk to my retired doctor I told him what happened and he said that was one of the reasons he retired. He said the drug companies were always pushing doctors to prescribe more and giving them cash incentives to do so and the medical organization supported the drug companies. He said doctors were being punished for not getting their patient’s levels down so he quit cuz he didn’t have the freedom to treat his patients the way he wanted to. I am not surprised by any of this and it’s no wonder so many people are turning to homeopathic remedies. They just don’t trust doctors anymore. It’s all very unfortunate.
Thanks for sharing this. I hope everybody watches it.”

I’d been taking statins for a year or so (only side effect noticeable was increased weariness) when I was transferred to a new GP. She asked me if I was happy to be taking statins, I said I was uneasy because if I was healthy why should I have to take medication? She told me that she “wasn’t allowed” to tell me not to take statins, but I could decide for myself, and to assist my decision she recommended The Great Cholesterol Con book. Since then I’ve stopped the meds, gone back to butter and “proper” food, eat whatever I want except junk, and, mainly, stopped worrying. Several years on I am active, feel great, don’t give a **** about HDL/LDL and enjoy life. Of course, I’ll die of something, but my body has, I suppose, less toxins and unwelcome substances than those who continue statins for years. I do get angry about the hold Big Pharma has on society, though.

This has just come out in Nature. Safety and efficacy of statin therapy –https://www.nature.com/articles/s41569-018-0098-5
What is fascinating is that this is a literature survey, Medline, PubMed and Embase. So they get very little evidence of bad side effects – who’d a thought? This is like a survey of Iraqi newspapers during the Saddam era, looking for negative comments about him. Again the positives are all relative risk.

The data cat amongst the pharma pigeons:
High low-density lipoprotein cholesterol inversely relates to dementia in community-dwelling older adults:https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fneur.2018.00952/abstract
This was my biased assupmtion anyway given how important cholesterol is in the brain/nerves and that it grabs extra from the blood across the BBB.

I am 72 and because my colestrol was 9 was issued with atorstatin. Boy did I have muscle cramp. Then pravastatin and again more side affects. Going to the toilet many times a night. Now given fenofibrate and experienced for

days severe stomach pain and couldn’t stand it any longer. Now what do I do? Am trying to get a doctors appointment.

Dr Kendrick cannot provide individual patient advice over the Internet. UK General Medical Council regulations are clear that to do so would be a breach of medical standards that could result in disciplinary proceedings.

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